Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (389 page)

A Latin term used to describe the troops stationed on the frontiers of the Roman empire in the 4th century
ad
, as opposed to the higher status
comitatenses
of the mobile field army.

 
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A small stone tool usually fashioned from an elongated pebble with one end bevelled off to form a rough blade. Limpet scoops are used while harvesting seafood to remove limpets and other crustacea from the rocks to which they cling.

 
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A metal spike, sometimes enlarged or elaborated at one end, that is passed through a hole in the end of a fixed axle on a cart or chariot in order to stop the wheel falling off.

 
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An early monastic site on a small rocky island accessible by a causeway only at low tide off the exposed north coast of Northumberland. In ad 634 King Oswald gave the island to the monastery of Iona. A year later St Aiden and monks from Iona established the monastery on Lindisfarne which soon became the centre of Celtic Christianity in the kingdom of Northumbria with associated houses at Jarrow, York, and Hexham. Its most famous bishop was St Cuthbert who lived there from about ad 685 until ad 687. From around ad 700, after the Celtic church had acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman church, Lindisfarne became the focus of a cultural renaissance in the region. This is especially well seen in the art of the period and in the beautifully made illuminated manuscripts, of which the best surviving example is the Lindisfarne Gospel dating to about ad 700. The monastery flourished until ad 793 when it became the target of the first Viking raids on Northumbria's east coast. The church and monastic buildings on Lindisfarne today date from the Norman period when a Benedictine monastery was established on the island.
[Sum.: D. O'Sullivan and R. Young , 1995,
Lindisfarne
. London: Batsford and English Heritage]

 
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A bog body found in Lindow Moss in the wetlands of northwest England in 1984. On examination it proved to be the body of a young man around 25 years of age who before being dumped in a shallow pool in the mire had been violently hit on the head twice, garrotted, and had his throat cut. Radiocarbon dates place these events in the 1st or 2nd century
ad
, and they are probably to be interpreted as a ritual sacrifice.
[Rep.: I. M. Stead , J. B. Bourke , and D. Brothwell , 1986,
Lindow Man. The body in the bog
. London: British Museum Publications]

 
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A kin-group defined through a number of generations by a specific line of descent, either through the male side (patrilineal) or the female side (matrilineal).

 
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